COMMUNITY
The Christian Community
The Christian Community in New Mexico
The Affiliate Communities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque New Mexico do not have a full time priest; however we are visited at a somewhat regular interval by a priest from The Christian Community in Denver.
Services and Talks
The Christian Community services take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Services include the Consecration of the Human Being and a Sunday Service for Children, followed by a community potluck.
A talk is included in the weekend visit in both Albuquerque and Santa Fe. A Children’s Lesson and time for Sacramental Consultations with the priest are also offered in Santa Fe.
About The Christian Community
The Christian Community is a Movement for Religious Renewal open to all who seek a living, growing relationship to Christ. Central to our work is a respect for the autonomy and integrity of each human being striving for a modern, healthy relationship with the Christ and spiritual world.
We are part of a larger worldwide Christian Community founded in 1922 in Switzerland by 45 men and women, including the eminent Lutheran theologian and minister Friedrich Rittlemeyer, with the help of Rudolf Steiner, Austrian thinker and mystic.
Both men and women serve as priests and have done so from the beginning of our movement.
The text of our Creed is a metamorphosis of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds. The Christian Community does not have any formal written dogma, and members are not required to sign articles of faith. Instead, The Christian Community encourages everyone to form independent judgments in religious matters.
The teachings are rich, varied and evolving. They are inspired by traditional Christian theology, the original work of Rudolf Steiner, and by independent research and insights of priests and members.
There is room in this modern Christian theology to incorporate such ideas as reincarnation and karma, a truly cosmic conception of Christ, and the role of spiritual beings at all levels of existence.
The Consecration of the Human Being
The Consecration of the Human Being (also known as The Act of Consecration of Man) is the centerpiece of the Christian Community's sacramental life.
The Consecration of the Human Being implies that the ultimate goal of our lives is to become a true human being. Christ, who himself became a human being, enlivens our true humanity. He gives his healing, transforming power to those who seek him, who recognize him and who follow him.
The Consecration of the Human Being renews the archetypal form of early Christian worship. It consists of four steps that reveal in visible form what happens as an invisible process in the spirit:
Gospel reading—hearing the good news from the realm of the angels
Offertory—offering ourselves in response
Transubstantiation—the transformation of what is offered
Communion—receiving renewal in spiritual-physical form.
This underlying structure is the human path, the way toward Christ. During The Consecration of the Human Being, we turn toward and unite with the divine beings of the spiritual world in prayer and concentration.
The Christian Community recognizes the Christian way is a path of freedom. Fostering freeness and responsibility in the individual is seen as crucial in approaching a relationship with Christ Jesus’ deed and message.
Sunday Service for Children
The Christian Community’s Sunday Service for Children is for children from seven years on. This is a time to take a further step in their religious life, to meet the divine world appropriate for this age onward.
The service is celebrated, together with other children, before the altar. Here, in a short festive act, the children are led to revere God as the primal ground of all nature, working in all things and all people. Praying together, an intercessory blessing, a reading from the New Testament, and the singing of a song belong to this service, which lasts around fifteen minutes.